


There's Got to be a Morning After

by The_Carnivorous_Muffin



Series: Life in the Fast Lane [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Female Harry Potter, Love Triangles, Master of Death Harry Potter, Morning After, Romantic Comedy, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2019-07-13 09:08:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16014773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Carnivorous_Muffin/pseuds/The_Carnivorous_Muffin
Summary: In which, in a moment of blind panic, Lily remembers that she got drunk and had sex with somebody but the question is if it was Draco Malfoy or someone more appealing.





	1. Chapter 1

August 1995, Sunday 8:00 am, A Morning That Also Never Happened, which Followed a Previous Night that Never Happened, Following Yet Another Day that Didn’t Happen, but wasn’t Implausible.

 

* * *

 

Lily’s first thought was that sunlight hurt and was generally unpleasant. Which, although her thoughts were rather bleary and sluggish at the moment, she couldn’t ever say she’d been for or against the sun as a whole. In fact, before now, she would have landed on the pro-sun side of that particular argument, but evidently things had changed.

 

She groaned, wincing and seeking refuge under the covers and trying to piece together what the hell had even happened. Lily couldn’t say she was usually a morning person, but she couldn’t remember if getting her brain going had ever felt so much like trying to push a giant concrete block up a hill in winter. Every time she tried to remember something or even think it was like there was this hideous distracting grinding in her head that just prompted her to go back and sleep and never wake up again.

 

It was almost, in fact, a bit like getting concussed by Squirrel or that one time she’d almost killed herself by running head first into an uncooperative platform nine and three-quarters. There was that dull pounding inside of her head and an odd tingling as if her head was filled with tiny plastic pellets moving this way and that along with a very distracting ache.

 

With that thought alone, Lily buried herself deeper under the covers.

 

First…

 

Well, first, where the hell was she?

 

Lily had lived in a lot of places in her short life and slept under a fair number of covers but this set didn’t seem immediately familiar. It wasn’t the cupboard beneath the stairs, it wasn’t the Dursley’s extra bedroom, it wasn’t Slytherin or Default, it wasn’t the bunk she’d set up in Riddle Inc, it wasn’t Wool’s Orphanage…

 

It was…

 

She cracked open an eye, confirmed that the sheets were of a dark silk variety that only someone with lots of money and absolutely no taste could possibly afford. Yes, it was a bit reminiscent of the guest room Lily usually ended up in at the Malfoy estate, only those sheets were always some mixture of green or silver (Slytherin pride and all). Black everything was too melodramatic and angst filled even for them.

 

However, the quality of the fabric, yes, that was the same.

 

Lily paused, wondering if this meant she was at the Malfoy’s or was just in some place eerily like the Malfoy residence. For all Lily knew they probably bought their sheets at the same magic silkworm factory in China. In fact, Lily was somehow almost certain that this was the case.

 

Well, there was an easy way to clarify that, and that was to figure out what she’d been doing before she ended up here. Except that, somehow, with her pounding head and uncooperative thoughts, was harder than it sounded.

 

Next to her Lily heard something rustle and maybe even mutter, pulling the sheets tiredly away from her while she tried to think and tug them back to protect her from the dreaded sun sneaking through the blinds.

 

Well, she remembered… Yes, she had come here, or rather to the Malfoy estate, with a lot of champagne in order to seduce Draco Malfoy because things had gotten out of hand.

 

Lily stopped, reexamined that thought, felt her eyes widen and a great pit open in her stomach as she combined the thoughts of seducing Draco Malfoy to waking up in a Malfoy-esque bed she didn’t recognize.

 

A Malfoy-esque bed while she currently didn’t seem to be wearing clothes, appeared to also be covered in the dried sweat one could expect after a night of passionate love making, and was currently occupied by someone else who sounded pretty damn masculine.

 

Lily, suddenly far more awake, had the intense urge to vomit, “Fuck!”

 

More annoyed only half-awake grumbling, maybe even a curse or two, and tugging on sheets with the half-hearted insistence one could only expect from someone half-awake who didn’t want to be awake at all. All of this coming from what Lily realized must be her bed partner who she suddenly didn’t want to turn around and recognize as Draco Malfoy. Or even just, you know, see his pale ass.

 

An ass that she now realized she must have been a full and appreciatively drunken witness of the night before. Not just his ass either but also his…

 

Lily cut off her own thoughts with what could only be described as a gurgle of despair earning yet another displeased mutter and grunt from the hungover naked Malfoy.

 

Wait, no, no that wasn’t right. She and Malfoy had gotten plastered, that part had certainly happened, but then they just ended up sort of venting at each other and talking about their problems. Lily talked about having hormonal needs and settling for Malfoy while Malfoy talked about Wizard Lenin, Pansy, and settling for Malfoy.

 

Even with more than a healthy consumption of alcohol they hadn’t gotten anywhere. Hadn’t gotten close to anywhere. In fact, if Lily was remembering right, the more she’d drunk the less enthused she’d been about the entire prospect. If it’d been up to Lily she’d probably have just staggered off to bed in despair at having failed to find an able and willing man in her life.

 

Lily sighed with relief, almost willing to let that be the end of that and gratefully fall back into sleep.

 

It took embarrassingly long to put together that there was a slight problem with this theory.

 

If Lily had gotten drunk, and Lily hadn’t slept with Malfoy, then who the hell was mysterious bed occupant number two?

 

Alright, so she and Malfoy had gotten drunk, just kind of sat there and then yes, yes, Wizard Lenin had come in after fleeing Bellatrix LeStrange’s advances once again! And it had been fleeing, he’d been slightly out of breath, wide-eyed and rustled as he’d slammed the door behind him as if that could shut out the memory of naked Bellatrix.

 

Lily had found that hilarious, still did, and had pointed out as much which must have driven him to the alcohol. Then Wizard Lenin said something very judgemental about the whole seduce Malfoy plan. Which… Which it was his damn idea, and she’d even pointed that out, but he’d dismissed that in typical Wizard Lenin fashion while he guzzled down champagne.

 

Then for whatever reason Malfoy had still been sitting there and she and Wizard Lenin had started talking, except Lily was pretty tanked and could hardly remember any specific details. It was something about regrets and Bellatrix and sex and he’d… He’d smiled at her, at some point, that strange smile that was both sardonic and soft all at once. That odd self-deprecating yet hopelessly romantic smile that only he seemed to possess, that many would say he possessed despite of himself. Yet, Lily had never thought that, she’d always known that was perhaps the only smile he could ever really have. That the bitterness, even the anger, he so often wore was something he’d collected and honed over the years to hide a surprisingly soft and tender interior that even he had forgotten existed.

 

At his heart he was a thing that yearned and had not yet quite reconciled himself to bitter disappointment and reality.

 

So, he’d smiled to her, even with Draco Malfoy in the room, and she’d stared because the expression hadn’t faltered as it so often would or disappeared behind some wry witticism or distraction…

 

And then he’d said something about things attached to strings with a finger pressed against her lips.

 

And then…

 

Lily rolled over, turned to face what thankfully was not Draco Malfoy, but instead met the wide open and expressionless eyes of Wizard Lenin who, also, was naked under the covers and covered in dried sweat.

 

For a moment they just stared at each other, unblinking, without any emotion whatsoever crossing either of their faces. She kept eye contact even as a part of her, the part of her that had gotten her into this mess in the first place, was urging her to look down and see if the actual goods matched the blurry memories of the night before.

 

Because now that she thought about it there were memories. Memories of abdominal muscles, of lips, of hands wandering down below waistbands and squeezing…

 

“So,” Lily said, loudly, to interrupt both her own thoughts and the overwhelming silence.

 

Wizard Lenin said nothing, did nothing, was in fact doing a rather alarmingly accurate Rabbit impersonation.

 

“So,” Lily repeated, a little more calmly as if she was perfectly in control of the situation. She then paused again, wondering what on earth she was supposed to add after that. Somehow “It was good for me, was it good for you?” seemed tactless and vulgar. Similarly, “That was a great first time and I think it’s all downhill from here, Lenin, old buddy old pal,” seemed similarly awkward, tactless, vulgar, and just kind of cringe worthy. And “I love you” felt…

 

She didn’t know how it felt, simple, profound, heartbreakingly true, and a large and bitter string between them that could never be broken.

 

A string that Wizard Lenin had insisted could not exist.

 

“So,” Lily tried again, for the third time now, “We’re cool?”

 

His eyebrows raised and mouth opened ever so slightly in confusion and irritation, finally a sign of life, and as always he instinctively moved his hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose even as he repeated in a rather hoarse voice, “We’re cool, really, Lily?”

 

“Well,” Lily stopped, looked down at herself, looked over at him, “I’m cool.”

 

“You’re cool?!”

 

She wasn’t cool, but something told her that this was one of those moments where you must desperately fake it until you make it. Lest something far more important shatter, “Sure, I mean, there was alcohol but… There were no strings attached, not a single thread, and so we cool.”

 

He opened his mouth, closed it and pursed his lips together, and finally opened it again, “Your blasé carelessness will forever astound me, Lily.”

 

“So, we’re not cool?” Lily clarified, something nervous and nagging rumbling about in her stomach at the thought.

 

He pulled the covers off over his head instead of answering, wincing and rubbing at his eyes in the sunlight while Lily did the same. Finally, walking away from her, dutifully ignoring the fact that her eyes couldn’t help but stray to his back, he entered the bathroom and then slammed the door shut behind him.

 

Leaving Lily in the bed, now staring at the ceiling, twiddling her thumbs together and trying to compose herself for the rest of whatever conversation they were going to have. Somehow, she was sure, even as he turned the shower on that he was probably doing the same thing.

 

Lily, hesitantly and quietly, tested out each to the unresponsive and ornate Malfoy ceiling.

 

“Does this make me your dark queen, perhaps?”

 

No, oh god no, he’d run for the hills and then she’d run for the hills. Plus, that whole thing just screamed, well, Wizard Trotsky. He’d certainly not hesitate to make her his dark queen over all Great Britain and whatever extended empire he happened to build for himself.

 

Lily had repeatedly, and pointedly, said no to being Wizard Trotsky’s queen and goddess.

 

“You know, Lenin, I wouldn’t mind Round Two: Electric Boogaloo.”

 

Oh, that was somehow even worse and would likely have even more disastrous results. He’d probably set fire to the Malfoy residence to remove evidence that round one had ever happened.

 

“Hey, I’m great at memory manipulation, and I know that horrifies you, but if you do happen to want to erase the last twelve hours I can…”

 

She trailed off, the words dying on her tongue as she thought that even if he would accept (which he would never) she couldn’t… She didn’t want this moment gone, for him or for her. So, what if there were strings? They had always had strings between them. By god, their destinies prophesied by Sybil Trelawney had bound them together so tightly that there deserved to be ballads about them. Given that and the fact that he, a piece of his own soul, had once rested in her head for more than a decade, it almost seemed natural that they’d wound up here together.

 

In fact, if Lily was the reader of this particular tale, she would have been mildly surprised and perhaps a bit dubious if the road they were travelling hadn’t ended here in one way or another. Any deviation on the path, any passing curiosity of Cedric Diggory or Bellatrix Black, were really only ever just curiosities and distractions. More, they had always, both of them, known it probably from the beginning.

 

So why not end up here?

 

Why deny things dangling from strings?

 

Lily sat up, dangled her feet over the bed and debated grabbing a sheet for a makeshift toga, then decided against it given that Wizard Lenin had gotten the full drunken show of that already the night before. She walked to the door of the bathroom, pale toes curling at contact with the plush carpet, and knocked on the door, “Lenin, I really think we’re both overreacting to this. I just thought about it for the past… two seconds or so, and I think that this was maybe kind of inevitable. Well, alright, you had a choice and I had a choice, but just look at Trotsky. He’s the majority of your soul and he’s… Well, you know…”

 

There was no answer, just the sound of the shower, Lily’s brow furrowed and she knocked again, louder, and asked, “Hey, Lenin, can you hear me? I just think we should probably talk now before you implode or something.”

 

There as a high probability, Lily suddenly thought to herself, that Wizard Lenin would implode.

 

Again, there was no answer. Lily frowned, stepped back to look at the door as if that might tell her how he was taking this so calmly or else had resorted to desperately ignoring her existence. She stepped closer again and shouted, “Ignoring me won’t make me go away, Lenin! I will break down this door if I have to.”

 

Again, not a word.

 

Well, Lily thought with a shrug, she had warned him. And so, with a blinding headache and a lot more power than she probably needed, Lily tore the door off its hinges and stepped inside to find a bathroom and a shower entirely empty of Wizard Lenin.

 

She blinked, blinked again, as if that might summon him from the ether.

 

Then, cursing, Lily exclaimed, “That motherfucker, he just hit and run!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This surprise new chapter brought to you in part by costumesofhannibal in tumblr, a large thank you to them.

August 1995, Sunday 8:00 am, A Midmorning That is Not Happening, which Followed a Morning that Also Never Happened, which in Turn Followed a Previous Night that Never Happened, Following Yet Another Day that Didn’t Happen, but wasn’t Implausible.

 

* * *

 

“Note to self,” Lily said as she clutched her head and stumbled out of Wizard Lenin’s melodramatic guest bedroom in the Malfoy manor, “Hangovers are the devil.”

 

It really wasn’t her morning.

 

Now, unlike Wizard Lenin, Lily wouldn’t say she regretted the previous night where she and Wizard Lenin had made sweet drunk monkey love but she was starting to regret the drunk part. If only because right now she couldn’t think, opening her eyes hurt, all she wanted to do was crawl back into bed, but she couldn’t because Wizard Lenin had gone missing.

 

Well, maybe not missing, he was just inconveniently absent.

 

And they needed to talk, or do something, because she had the feeling that this was one of those things that was not going to blow over and was just going to get worse with time.

 

Still, she didn’t need a headache while dealing with Wizard Lenin’s overemotional bullshit.

 

Honestly, she was the one who’d been a virgin, shouldn’t she be the one having some sort of existential crisis right now? Well, she probably would when she had a chance to think, but her head hurt too much and she was feeling this sort of self-conscious betrayal at the fact that Wizard Lenin would rather crawl naked out a window than look at her right now.

 

So, it probably hadn’t been good for him, or at least not in retrospect.

 

Something about that thought was like a knife twisting inside of her heart.

 

Clearly, it was better not to even think at all.

 

Lily stumbled down the stairs, nearly falling but managing to hold herself upright by clinging to the bannister, and eventually managing to make it safely to the landing below. Step one, successfully accomplished. With a sigh of relief she stepped forward only to stop as she spotted a white blur in the corner of her eye.

“Huh,” Lily said as she turned her head.

 

There was Draco Malfoy trapped in an arm chair, dark circles under his eyes, covered in dried terrified sweat, looking as if he’d spent all night contemplating his imminent demise. She didn’t remember that part of the night before, it must not have made that much of an impression.

 

She considered him for a moment, his head hung low and twitching as he tried and failed to stay awake, and contemplated freeing him from his ridiculous prison. Well, Lily had larger problems than Draco Malfoy.

 

She stepped past him, into the grand entrance, and finally out the front door where, as she perhaps could have predicted, Wizard Lenin was nowhere in sight.

 

“Well, shit,” Lily said.

 

She didn’t know why, but she’d sort of been hoping he’d be right outside on the front step or something. She could almost picture it, him gazing out into the midday sunlight, past the peacocks and the gilded gates to that metaphorical thing he’d always wanted yet could never quite reach. He’d look tired, his hair ruffled and dark circles under his eyes, but all the same in his unrefined state he’d appear all the more human for it.

 

And, with the way the sunlight would glint in his dark hair, catch in his pale eyes, Lily would think and perhaps even say that he’d never looked better.

 

He’d never looked more himself.

 

But he wasn’t here, instead there was only a lawn filled with albino peacocks clucking about, and Lily standing there on the front step as if the world might change if she just kept standing long enough.

 

Enough of that, Lily didn’t have time for nostalgia and bittersweet regret. She was a fifteen-old-girl cleaning up the emotional cesspool of a near seventy-year-old man. Lily blanched, realizing what she’d just thought.

 

“Holy Mother of God,” Lily exclaimed, “Wizard Lenin is ancient!”

 

He’d been eleven at the end of 1937, which meant he’d been born in 1926, which meant that the man was pushing seventy. Lily had never thought of that before, sure she knew he was old and older than the likes of Snape, but she’d never actually sat down and crunched the numbers. Especially since he’d always been so ageless, it hadn’t seemed to matter how old he was.

 

Except now instead of brooding on the doorstep she had the terrible image of him raising a cane and telling the blasted kids to get off his lawn.

 

Lily had to sit down.

 

“We have over a fifty-year age gap,” Lily said to herself, suddenly remembering that Lily wasn’t technically legal, for all that she’d never really thought about her own age before. Still, now she couldn’t think of anything else, she literally was the naughty schoolgirl in detention with Professor Riddle.

 

And she liked it.

 

“I like old people,” Lily said, and somehow this hit her harder than the hangover.

 

Well, she didn’t necessarily like old looking people, she didn’t have the hots for Albus Dumbledore, but there was something about Wizard Lenin that she liked. Not just in a perpetual best friend way, but in a ‘his confident charm and old timey personality is bloody hot’.

 

Anyone else Lily’s age would probably have gone for the sixteen-year-old alternative Wizard Trotsky.

 

“Well, you know, if he wasn’t insane,” Lily corrected herself, because god knows that giving Wizard Trotsky that inch would only grant him the ability to take her miles down the path into hell.

 

It was then, of course, that Lily’s brain finally decided to get over its hangover and come up with actual useful ideas. Ideas that, were, of course, the worst things ever.

 

“Oh, oh hell,” Lily said to herself in horror.

 

Lily had no idea where Wizard Lenin was, she had no idea where to start looking for him, because Wizard Lenin was a very private man who would choose to brood at the far end of the Earth so long as Lily never found him.

 

And Lily probably never would until he wanted her to, which given this morning, was probably never.

 

However, someone else would know exactly how to find Wizard Lenin, who you could say had a mystical connection with the man that surpassed even Lily’s bond with him.

 

“Oh, no, there must be another way.”

 

Except Lily wasn’t coming up with any, her head hurt, and she just wanted to get this over with. Except she didn’t because she really didn’t want to have to do this next part.

 

She could try to teleport to him directly! Yes, she could do that!

 

“Concentrate, Lily”, Lily said as she scrambled to her feet, “Avoid desperate measures!”

 

She could do this, she’d been doing shit like this since she was five. Lily had this in the bag, she’d just teleport straight to wherever Wizard Lenin was and…

 

And he wasn’t anywhere.

 

In the mental map of Great Britain he was nowhere in sight, either dead or else somehow hidden from her view, likely under piles and piles of wards to distract and deflect her attention. Because of course he knew that she could teleport straight for him, and if he was really going out of his way to avoid her, even if he had a hangover and no pants, then he’d do everything in his power to make her job difficult.

 

“Why?” Lily asked God, who as always appeared to have no answer for her, “Oh Lord, why do you do this to me?”

 

In her past life, Lily thought, she must have been the worst person in the world.

 

“Alright,” Lily said, bolstering her resolve, “Alright, you can do this, Lily. Just, take a deep breath in and repress everything that happens in the next few hours.”

 

With that, she took a breath and took the plunge through time and space straight into the arms of the one man who all but put a neon sign over his head for her love and affection.

 

“Lily?”

 

Lily opened her eyes, really wishing she didn’t have to, but there was Wizard Trotsky in the flesh looking as manic as always. His hair was skewed out in different directions, giving him a boyish sort of charm, his bright blue eyes sparkling with what was either joy or a deluded kind of madness, and he was looking at her like it was Christmas.

 

Except Tom Riddle had never looked like that even on Christmas.

 

“Lily, you’re here,” he whispered reverently, reaching out to cup her face in his pale hands, “You’re really here!”

 

“Yeah,” Lily said, trying not to cringe, “Where is here anyway?”

 

As far as Lily could tell it was a rather run down flat likely in Knockturn Alley. There was suspicious magical mildew on the wall that was glowing an ominous purple color, also on the wall were newspaper clippings with Lily’s face, red string connecting one article to another, and giant questions written in garish red letters right on the peeling wallpaper.

 

It really was exactly the kind of bachelor pad she’d imagined Wizard Trotsky would make for himself.

 

“That doesn’t matter,” he said, appearing to remember that his apartment was trashy enough that Lily could believe he was squatting in it, “You’re… You’re here, here, come sit.”

 

He ushered her over to an arm chair, stopped and considered the mysterious brown stains on its surface, and quickly conjured one for her out of thin air with a swish of his wand. He gently pushed her into it, smiling all the while like he could barely contain the expression, and before she was settled he was rambling again, “Do you want tea? I’ll get you some tea, hold on a second.”

 

He rushed off the kitchen while Lily sat there, twiddling her thumbs, and hoping Wizard Lenin knew exactly the kind of sacrifices she was making for him. There was loud banging, several crashes, and cursing for several minutes as Wizard Trotsky went through the apparently perilous task of getting tea for the pair of them.

 

Wizard Lenin owed her, he owed her big for this.

 

Finally, after entirely too long, Wizard Trotsky returned triumphant with a tray of tea and what Lily guessed was supposed to be biscuits. They probably had been biscuits in one past life or another.

 

He stared at her for a moment, looking painfully awkward, then clearing his throat he said, “It’s good to see you, I’m—”

 

“Yes,” Lily said, cutting him off with a wince, “Look, thanks for the tea and all—”

 

“Oh, it was no trouble,” he said over her own words, flashing her that boyish grin that Wizard Lenin had outgrown, “Really, Lily, tea is nothing.”

 

“Right,” Lily affirmed dully, “But the thing is, I didn’t really come here to catch up on the good old days or, you know, anything like that.”

 

His expression fell, his eyes grew dull, and it appeared to just hit him that Lily and Wizard Trotsky had at best a rather strained relationship.

 

“Oh, oh I see,” he said, his voice somber, and then an iron curtain fell over his eyes and whatever wounded underbelly of emotion he’d been displaying was gone, “Then why are you here, Lily?”

 

“I’ve misplaced Wizard Lenin,” Lily said with a sigh, “I was hoping you could point me in the right direction?”

 

His pale, thin, fingers began to tap against the arm rest of his own chair, “Oh? That was rather foolish of you, Lily.”

 

“Well, you know how best friends are sometimes,” Lily said with a grin she did not feel, “They just slip straight through your fingers and end up god only knows where.”

 

“I suppose I would know about that,” Wizard Trotsky said, a cruel and crooked smile growing on his lips, “After all, I’ve had a very difficult time keeping hold of you.”

 

“Yeah, funny that,” Lily responded, “But seriously, help would be greatly appreciated.”

 

“And why should I?” he asked.

 

Oh, how had Lily seen this coming? She just wanted to go and pound her head against the creepy wall of conspiracy theory Lily in endless frustration. Why had she come here? Why?

 

“You know I’m not fond of my better half, as it were. Especially not where you’re concerned, Lily,” he said, inspecting his fingernails, “If the man is gone then I say good riddance.”

 

“You know he is you—”

 

“No,” Wizard Trotsky said, “He is not. I am the beating heart that he cut out of his own body, he is merely the lumbering shell that remains. I have neither the reason nor the inclination to help him.”

 

“Well,” Lily said dully, “Thanks for that.”

 

At least it’d been quick, she thought to herself as she prepared to leave. Only, Wizard Trotsky held up a hand to stop her, “I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it.”

 

“You just said you wouldn’t do it,” Lily pointed out, only for him to give her an exasperated look.

 

“I said that I wouldn’t do it for him,” he noted meaningfully, staring deep into her eyes as if he could convey some very important thought that she really should be picking up on.

 

“Shit,” Lily said, “Alright, what do you want?”

 

And then it was all smiles again, a soft sweet thing stretching from one ear to the other, “I’m so glad you asked, Lily.”

 

Lily’s eyes widened as a horrible thought entered her head. Immediately she blurted, “If it’s marriage my answer is no.”

 

He just smiled in turn, like Lily went and said the darndest things, “No, no, nothing like that. How about a date.”

 

“A date?” Lily asked, “Aren’t I a little young for a date?”

 

(The irony, as soon as the words exited her mouth, was not lost on her given that she was only in this mess because she’d just skipped past the dating part to the sex with a man far older than Wizard Trotsky.)

 

“Nonsense, you’re only a year younger than I was when I entered the diary,” Wizard Trotsky said, in the kind of manner that had Lily believing he’d been counting every second since they’d first met at Hogwarts.

 

“And you don’t want anything else?” Lily asked with a grimace.

 

“You’re the one who said holy matrimony was off the table,” he pointed out, with all the casual ease as if he was talking about the bloody weather.

 

Oh, god, she didn’t even know what Wizard Lenin owed her for this anymore.

 

Alarm bells were going off in the back of her head, blaring at full force, telling her to back out now and that there wasn’t any shame. Except, except…

 

Except Wizard Lenin had always been more important than all the danger and beasts of the world. Even when not in her head, even when separated by time and space, she owed him more than this. Such were the red threads of fate that connected them.

 

“Fine,” Lily said holding out her hand, “You take me to him, now, and you have yourself one date.”

 

He took her hand much too quickly, squeezing it in his own, “You won’t regret this, Lily.”

 

She regretted it already.

 

He closed his eyes then, searching for Wizard Lenin as Lily herself had, only with the benefit of being a part of the man’s castoff soul. Finally, his eyes fluttered open, and he let out a relaxed breath, “Found him.”

 

And with no warning they were off, hurtling through space and time and with a crack arriving in what looked a hell of a lot like Gollum’s cave. Well, she supposed when Wizard Lenin brooded he really brooded, creepy and depressing atmosphere included.

 

“Thanks,” Lily said, patting Wizard Trotsky on the shoulder, “You wait here or something.”

 

“I’ll be expecting that date soon, Lily,” Wizard Trotsky reminded her as he leaned with a casual grace against the curved wall of the cave and a pleased grin on his face. It was almost sad how at ease he looked at their discomfiting surroundings.

 

“Yeah,” Lily said, “Really looking forward to that, Trotsky.”

 

With a small shudder she moved forward into the dark, eyes roving over every shadow until finally she found one paler than the rest, the shape of a man sitting just at the edge of the still water. Without a word Lily sat down next to him and stared out with him.

 

The water was filled with zombies. Pale corpses dreamt with eyes closed beneath the water, like staring into some horrifying mirror. Somehow, Lily hadn’t been expecting that.

 

“So,” Lily said as she glanced over at her companion, “I see you managed to find yourself some pants.”  


Not just pants but a shirt and jacket as well, nothing too flashy, clearly conjured on a moment’s notice but it suited him all the same. His lips twitched, almost a smile, at her introduction. He didn’t say anything though and didn’t look directly at her either.

 

“You know, that was a real class act leaving like that, Lenin,” Lily said, motioning behind her to where Wizard Trotsky lurked like some dread poltergeist, “I had to go and find Trotsky to hunt you down. And now I owe him a favor—I don’t like owing him favors.”

 

“I didn’t ask you to come,” Wizard Lenin said quietly.

 

“Of course you didn’t,” Lily said, “That doesn’t mean I still won’t come.”

 

“Clearly,” and this time he did smile, as if he really couldn’t help himself.

 

“So,” Lily said, brushing her shoulder against his, “What do we do now?”

 

“Now?” he asked.

 

“Well, I’m afraid we’ve got strings, my friend,” Lily said, “Dangling, red, messy, knotted strings between the pair of us.”

 

“Or a series of poor decisions fueled by alcohol,” Wizard Lenin retorted drily.

 

“You think?” Lily asked, musing, “I rather think we’d be here sooner or later, alcohol or not, though maybe with fewer zombies.”

 

“Don’t disparage the inferi,” Wizard Lenin chided, “They’re very useful.”

“They’re very atmospheric,” Lily agreed, “At the very least.”

 

Finally, he looked her directly in the eye, and with a fond smile he said, “You’re not going to brush over this, are you?”

 

“Nope,” Lily said, “I’m afraid we’re stuck with each other, Lenin. We’ve always been, an ouroboros, remember?”

 

He grimaced, stood, and held a hand towards her to help her off the floor of the cave and begin the slow, meandering, journey back to Malfoy manor, “Let’s not talk about snakes, Lily, they’re too much of a phallic symbol for me this morning.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the 4500th review of "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus" on fanfiction

August 1995, Sunday 8:00 am, A Meeting that Never Happened After Many Other Things Which Didn’t Happen.

 

* * *

 

 

“You know, Lenin,” Lily said clearing her throat as she stood in front of his desk, trying and failing not to think of the fact that she was on step 1 of reenacting the naughty school girl drama with Professor Riddle, “Tomorrow is the first of September.”

 

Wizard Lenin, predictably, said nothing. Not only did he say nothing, he did nothing but read through The Daily Prophet. Now, Lily might have been offended if she hadn’t been perfectly aware that Wizard Lenin considered The Prophet to be utter propagandist tripe (it was his propagandist tripe so he couldn’t complain too loudly but it still featured Rita Skeeter as a major journalist). Which, of course, just made it painfully obvious that he was just trying to avoid looking at her face like usual.

 

He may have willingly returned to Malfoy Manor in that late week in August of 1995 but that hadn’t meant he’d liked it.

 

“In case you suddenly don’t remember,” Lily continued, “I leave for Hogwarts on the first.”

 

He still said nothing.

 

“Me and Ferret Malfoy are gonna board the Hogwarts Express and reunite with all of our plucky friends,” Lily continued, rocking back and forth on her heels, “Some of them may have even had growth spurts.”

 

Lily wanted to say that they may have even miraculously become as attractive as Cedric Diggory, dearly graduated Adonis among Hufflepuffs, but that was asking entirely too much. The gene pool lottery had skipped over Lily’s years in Hogwarts and had left Lily, Lepur Rabbitson (who looked just as ethereally and unnaturally beautiful as ever), and oddly enough Hermione Granger (who had cleaned up miraculously well to snag none other than Hungarian beefcake Viktor Krum) as the best of them by a mile.

 

So, the best she could do was imply they might have perhaps grown tall enough to interest Lily.

 

This was a filthy lie, but Lily was looking for some sort of reaction here.

 

“I could get myself a boyfriend,” Lily plunged ahead with a bravado she certainly didn’t deserve but was willing to own if it’d get her some kind of reaction, “Some Hufflepuff or another.”

 

Wizard Lenin finally lowered the paper, however instead of seething with jealousy he just gave her this flat deadpan look as if he really couldn’t believe she thought he was this stupid, “If you can’t be bothered to learn his bloody name I hardly think he’s going to be inclined to court you.”

 

Still, that was more than a reaction she’d got in a way, Lily pounded her hands down on the table, grinning and moving forward, “But you do remember I’m leaving, don’t you?”

 

“Yes,” Wizard Lenin said, “And good bloody riddance too.”

 

“You don’t mean that,” Lily said slyly, “I leave you alone for six months and you’ll just be stuck with these people.”

 

These people, of course, being his loyal minions and cultists. Each and every one of whom he loathed entirely. The very thought of the next six months in their company had Wizard Lenin paling ever so slightly before he could reclaim his composure, “You won’t last six months. Not without some tournament to the death keeping you there.”

 

This was probably true, Lily had an abysmal attendance record at Hogwarts, and likely only the fact that she was the girl who lived kept her moving along with the rest of her class.

 

Still, he wasn’t saying what she’d come to talk about, not really. She wasn’t necessarily hoping for an, “I’ll miss you” or even a “I’ll write” but she’d been looking for something. Finally, feeling the smile leave her lips with a sigh, she asked, “What are we going to do?”

 

“Do?” he asked, as if he had no earthly idea what she was talking about.

 

He’d been doing that for the entire last half of August. Ever since their night of drunken revelry. She was pretty sure he’d either obliviated or else traumatized Draco into silence as well. Like if he covered it up enough then it would never have happened in the first place.

 

Except, he hadn’t erased it from his own mind, had he? Nor had he tried to take it from hers. Maybe it was because he knew how she felt about that, the places she wouldn’t dare to travel since Morgan Gaunt, or maybe it was because he both wanted to forget and didn’t want to at all.

Trapped by his own ambivalence.

 

Lily couldn’t say she wasn’t sympathetic. Except, the way she viewed it, they’d been past that ages ago. Why dwell on decisions you simply couldn’t take back and boundaries already crossed? The only thing you could ever do was move forward.

 

“Things change,” Lily said, “We’ve changed.”

 

“Nothing’s changed,” Wizard Lenin scoffed, or rather attempted to, but his heart wasn’t in it, “Who said anything’s changed? I certainly haven’t changed.”

 

“So, you really are fine if we go our separate ways here?” Lily asked, watching as he paused, considered her as if she’d said something truly dangerous.

 

“You stay here, playing nurse maid and sugar daddy to Bellatrix, I go to Hogwarts and get myself some boyfriend or another—”

 

“You’re bluffing,” Wizard Lenin said with a laugh, “You would get bored of those fifteen-year-old boys so quickly that—”

 

“Sometimes, Lenin, we settle,” Lily interjected, giving him a pointed look, reminding him that whatever he wanted to call it Bellatrix LeStrange was settling. Him and her, well, that wasn’t so different from Lily and some Hufflepuff, now was it?

 

Well, now that Lily was thinking about it, she paused, “Or maybe I could try and swing the other direction?”

 

Lily hadn’t considered the female half of the equation too seriously, her hormonal preferences had seemed skewed towards muscular abs, but if she thought about it then the girls of Hogwarts were leagues beyond the men. You had Cho Chang (who sure, she was dating Cedric or what have you), but then Granger with her suddenly normal person hair was in the mix, Lily had always been fond of Luna, and maybe she could start some sort of long distance relationship with Fleur the proudly seductive ice queen across the sea.

 

“Lily—”

 

Fleur might have loathed Lily at first, but she’d come to regard Lily with respect even in the beginning for her feminist appeal, and then saving Gabrielle had just made Lily the greatest thing that had ever happened. It was too bad that had been after the Yule Ball though, as Lily really could have used that date.

 

“Lily!”

 

Lily suddenly remembered where she was and what she was doing, and that, oddly enough, it appeared to suddenly be working. She smiled at her oldest and closest friend, “You see? Sometimes, Lenin, we can’t just sweep things under the rug.”

 

He sighed, dropped his head into his hands, and muttering down at his desk asked, “Are you seriously suggesting, that you and I, engage in some kind of long-distance relationship?”

 

Lily wasn’t sure that was what she’d been asking. Really, she’d just been looking for some kind of acknowledgement. However, now that he said it, he had a point. Long distance relationships were things people did in these situations. You called on the telephone, or the closest thing Hogwarts had to a telephone which were fireplaces, you saw each other any of the breaks you had.

 

“Sure,” Lily said, “I can do long distance.”

 

He dragged fingers through his hair, tugging at it in anxiety, “What have you reduced me to?”

 

“Please, I didn’t do this,” Lily said, “This was the product of alcohol and poor decisions. But they were decisions and we have to live with them. I don’t think they’re all bad, do you?”

 

“You are—” he cut himself up, looked up at her in desperation, “You’re not even half my age, you’re less than that!”

 

“I try not to think about that part,” Lily said, which was really true, as that part was… uncomfortable and hadn’t necessarily become less uncomfortable over time. Of course, if she really thought about it, then she wasn’t sure why their being any closer in age would somehow make it better.

 

Look at Wizard Trotsky, they were only a year apart, and he was a bloody madman. Was it really suddenly better for her to date the younger version just because he was younger? Wasn’t it better that she took the version refined by experience?

 

Which suddenly sounded a lot dirtier than she’d intended.

 

“That is the part you must think about, Lily!” Wizard Lenin shouted, “And what about everything else? What if it gets out?!”

 

“What if what gets out?”

 

“You and I are mortal enemies—”

 

“I live in your house!”

 

“Anything circulating at the moment is easily dismissed rumor, so absurd it’s laughable, but if word spreads that I’m your lover—”

 

“I don’t see how that’s any less tabloid worthy,” Lily noted, she could see the article right now, right next to Luna’s latest expose on a blibbering humdinger. Sadly, though, The Quibbler was the only paper of repute left in England, it was just that nobody had realized it yet.

 

“And so what if they do?” Lily asked, “That’s just a lame excuse and you and I both know it. You just don’t want to deal with this, as usual.”

 

That last bit… It’d just slipped out, she hadn’t meant it, no she had, but she hadn’t meant to say it. Suddenly though she realized how true it was, that in his own way, Wizard Lenin was always running away from who he really was and what he really wanted. He tried so desperately to shape himself into what he thought he was, what he yearned to be, that he forgot about the man who lay beneath it.

 

“As usual?!”

 

“You never want to deal with anything,” Lily said quietly, “This isn’t anything new, is it? Why should I have expected any differently? For once, Lenin, can’t you forget about the world and what you think it expects of you? Let them make up their own minds, they always do.”

 

She sighed then, shoved her hands into her pockets, and with a half-hearted smile announced, “Well, I guess I’d better finish packing. Have to prepare myself for whatever psychopath Dumbledore has hired for Defense this time.”

 

“See you—”

 

“Wait!” he stood, he actually stood up from his goddamn chair in the most melodramatic manner Lily had ever seen, like he’d forgotten he didn’t live in a soap opera or romantic comedy in that pivotal moment where the jackass male lead realizes the error of his ways.

 

Then he suddenly remembered he was in the real world and stood there with his mouth half open like an idiot.

 

Lily waited.

 

She kept waiting.

 

… He seemed to be broken, he just kept standing there staring at her, like he was waiting for her to start saying something.

 

“I’ll do it,” he finally blurted.

 

“What?”

 

“Your long-distance relationship,” he said, “I’ll do it. No, I’ll do better than that!”

 

“Better?” Lily asked, not quite sure where he was going as the dating itself was more than she would have expected from him, as it was she was still trying to wrap her head around how that would possibly work.

 

Did this mean she was going to get flowers in the mail from him? Or those weird singing valentines people sometimes sent off?

 

However, whatever hesitance he had before seemed to have been ripped from him in a moment of panic, leaving only unadulterated determination in its place, “It’s time we go public! Show Dumbledore exactly how far he’s lost you and bring this nation to its knees in despair!”

 

Well, that sounded romantic.

 

“We’ll get engaged!”

 

Lily stared at him, took in that manic grin and dazed expression, and decided that she’d better leave him alone for a few months. Maybe then he’d settle down into a reasonable human being.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a commission on tumblr by costumesofhannibal who asked for a sequel to "The Night Before the Morning After". So here, we get a glimpse of that fateful morning and can imagine Wizard Lenin crawling out of the bathroom window naked. Or, you know, teleporting with a towel on. Whatever floats your boat.
> 
> Thank you for reading, comments, kudos, and bookmarks are greatly appreciated.


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